Strings

REPEAT

Repeats a string the given number of times.

Syntax

REPEAT(<text>, <times>)

Joins a string to itself: REPEAT('ab', 3) gives ababab. Handy for simple bar charts right in the query result, for separators or for masking: REPEAT('*', 4).

Data for the examples

employees

name	department	salary	bonus	phone
Emma	backend	1200	300	+44 7700 900123
Liam	backend	1000	NULL	NULL
Olivia	frontend	1350	150	+44 7700 900456
Noah	frontend	950	NULL	+44 7700 900789
Sophia	design	1200	200	NULL

These tables already exist in the sandbox — the examples below use them. Want to try this in your own database? Copy the SQL.

Repeat a string

SELECT REPEAT('ab', 3) AS repeated,

REPEAT('-', 10) AS line;

repeated	line
ababab	----------

A salary bar chart

SELECT name, salary,

REPEAT('█', salary / 100) AS bar

FROM employees;

name	salary	bar
Emma	1200	████████████
Liam	1000	██████████
Olivia	1350	█████████████
Noah	950	█████████
Sophia	1200	████████████

One square is 100 of salary. Integer division drops the remainder, so the count comes out whole.

Hide a phone number except the last digits

SELECT name,

REPEAT('*', LENGTH(phone) - 3) || RIGHT(phone, 3) AS masked_phone

FROM employees;

name	masked_phone
Emma	************123
Liam	NULL
Olivia	************456
Noah	************789
Sophia	NULL

Watch out

Zero or a negative count isn't an error but an empty string: REPEAT('ab', -1) gives ''.

The count must be an integer: REPEAT('*', salary / 100.0) throws function repeat(unknown, numeric) does not exist. Cast the type: (salary / 100.0)::int.

Related functions

LPAD CONCAT LENGTH